Friday, November 25, 2011

While organizing my books on the new bookshelf I grabbed "Good to the Grain" and stared at its beautiful cover (those delicious rhubarb tarts!) for a few seconds... Then it suddenly hit me: I hadn’t used that book in ages; it’s one of my favorite books and that makes me wonder about the poor books I seldom or never use. Well, that’s just me. So I decided to make something – anything – from the book. Since there was a package of oats listed on my inventory this bread was the recipe of choice. I think you can see on the photo how tender it was and I have got more news for you: this bread makes a killer grilled cheese.

Lightly butter a large bowl and a 22.5x12.5x7.5cm (9x5x3in) loaf pan. Set aside.
Add 2 cups of warm water, yeast and molasses to the bowl of a standing mixer. Stir, then allow yeast to bloom (about 5 minutes) until it begins to bubble.
Add the flours, oats and butter to the bowl and stir together with a wooden spoon. Cover with a towel and let stand for 30 minutes.
Attach the bowl and the hook to the mixer, add the salt to the bowl and mix on medium speed for 6 minutes. The dough should slap around the sides of the bowl without sticking to them. If dough is too sticky, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of flour (but only if absolutely necessary – avoid adding extra flour).
Scrape dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times. Transfer to the buttered bowl, cover with a towel and leave it to rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape it onto a rough rectangle (with the smaller side facing you). Fold the dough like a letter, then roll it to get a cylinder. Pinch the seams together and transfer to the prepared loaf pan, seam side down. Leave to rise again in a warm place for about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
Before baking, sprinkle the top of the bread with oats (optional)**. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top crust of the bread is as dark as molasses*** and the bottom crust is dark brown. To check for doneness: give the top of the loaf a thump to see if it sounds hollow – if it doesn’t, bake the bread for another 5 minutes. Check again.
Remove from the oven and carefully remove the loaf from the pan. Cool over a wire rack.

* bread wasn’t salty enough for me; I’d add more salt next time
** I brushed the loaf with melted butter to make the oats stick to it but it did not work – as soon as I unmolded the bread the oats fell off on the sink
*** my bread is a little on the pale side but still delicious – it would have burned it I’d waited for it to brown as much as the recipes calls for

Makes 1 large loaf – I made the exact recipe above and got two loaves, using two 20x9cm (8x3½ in) loaf pans